Page:The Snake's Pass (Stoker).djvu/128

 "The sunset! What am I thinking of! Good-night! good-night! No, you must not come—it would never do! Good night!" And before I could say a word, she was speeding down the eastern slope of the mountain.

The revulsion from such a dream of happiness made me for the moment ungrateful; and I felt that it was with an angry sneer on my lip that I muttered as I looked at her retreating form:—

"Why are the happy hours so short—whilst misery and anxiety spread out endlessly?"

But as the red light of the sunset smote my face, a better and a holier feeling came to me; and there on the top of the hill I knelt and prayed, with the directness and fervour that are the spiritual gifts of youth, that every blessing might light on her—the arrière pensée being—her, my wife. Slowly I went down the mountain after the sun had set; and when I got to the foot, I stood bareheaded for a long time, looking at the summit which had given me so much happiness.

Do not sneer or make light of such moments, ye whose lives are grey. Would to God that the grey-haired and grey-souled watchers of life, could feel such moments once again!

I walked home with rare briskness, but did not feel tired at all by it—I seemed to tread on air. As I drew near the hotel, I had some vague idea of hurrying at once to my own room, and avoiding dinner altogether as something too gross and carnal for my present exalted